Racism and violence against Asians in the U.S. have been another side effect of COVID-19. Leading up to the Lunar New Year, videos of elderly Asians and Asian Americans being assaulted began circulating on social media. Credit: Xinhua/Sipa USA via TNS
Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting center founded in March 2020 to track hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, received 2,808 reports of anti-Asian sentiment between March 19 and Dec. 31, 2020.
Ohio State students said the university community is no exception.
Jacob Chang, a third-year in psychology and political science, is an international student who said he has faced several acts of discrimination since the beginning of the pandemic, such as someone kicking snow in his face close to campus.
Chang, the vice president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Society, said his work at Ohio State has been raising awareness of the reality faced by students who did not grow up in America.
“[International students] are too busy surviving, adapting, they don’t have time to think about what they deserve, what they want or what they can achieve. That’s the problem,” Chang said.
Since some people agree with the Asian stereotypes, Chang said it’s harder to demonstrate why they are harmful. He said often, Asian Americans and international students have to live with the daily microaggressions.
“[Going] to the United States means you have to face A, B, C, D, E here. You have to speak English, [face] potential discrimination, people who are racist and xenophobic. That’s a given, so people normalize,” Chang said.
A popular media theme is the model minority myth, the stereotype that all Asian individuals who immigrate to America are wealthy, successful and encounter no real hardships, Chang said. The myth diminishes problems faced by Asian Americans and serves as an object of racism against other minorities who are not deemed to be in the model minority.
Chang said movies such as “Crazy Rich Asians” have created a belief among some people that all Asians do not face economic or xenophobic burdens. He also said there is a lack of historical education on subjects such as Japanese internment camps during World War II and anti-Chinese immigration laws from the 19th century.
“I think in a lot of ways the media treats our identity as a form of entertainment rather than a form of things we need to reflect and people need to be educated on,” Chang said.
Researchers at Ohio State conducted a national survey measuring the effect of prejudice, maladaptive coping — blaming Asians for COVID-19 — and biased media on the stigmatization of Asians and Asian Americans during the pandemic. Hyunyi Cho, lead author of the study and a professor of communications at Ohio State, said all three contributed, but preexisting racial prejudice played the strongest role.
“One of the surprising things was the magnitude, impact of the stereotypical beliefs and emotion associated with Asians in America and how it [impacted] prejudice and stigmatization,” Cho said.
However, some Asian students said they expected the increase of hatred displayed on social media after politicians and certain media outlets began associating the virus with China.
Maria Le, president of the Vietnamese Student Association, said she found out about the attacks from her friends sharing videos on social media. However, other forms of media continue to portray Asians in a certain light, underrepresenting the plight and proliferating certain stereotypes.
“It’s always been here. It’s just now that people are actually now realizing that these things happen,” Le, a third-year in human resources, said.
Cho said these findings pose a constant problem for all minorities beyond the Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American community. As long as misinformation and preexisting prejudice remain prevalent in society, minorities will be targeted.
“I hope we learn from this situation. But the underlying stereotypical beliefs when unchallenged will remain and then it will rear its ugly head again when times become tough,” Cho said. “I think this is [a] serious issue for Asians and for any minority groups of any kind.”
Even with this research and the increasing attention on issues of racism, Cho said there remain gaps in knowledge and underreporting in the media leading to a lack of awareness among people not directly involved.
“It is frustrating. It is also a manifestation of the deep held bias against the Asian American community as a whole. As if we don’t matter,” Cho said.
Perspective thinking and the open sharing of personal experiences are some ways Cho said she thinks progress can be made to minimize discrimination, slowly but surely.
“One of the important paths ahead is communicating about common humanity that underlie all of us. That connects all of us,” Cho said.
Le said at the beginning of the pandemic, she was afraid to go out for fear of being treated as if she “has the virus.” Now, she said she hopes for more information to be spread about the discrimination to the Asian community so a more empathetic view can be shared by all.
“At the end of the day we are all the same,” Le said. “We shouldn’t be treating each other terribly.”
Editor’s note: a previous version of this story stated Cho’s research showed preexisting prejudice, maladaptive coping and biased media all “heavily” contributed to the increase in violence against Asian Americans. This story was edited to more accurately reflect that preexisting prejudice is the main factor.
